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I gave an overview of our campsite at Assateague State Park in a previous post, and now I’ll cover what we actually did during our camping weekend!
First, of course, “hikes.” I use hikes in quotations because I always envision hikes as going over rough terrain on natural surfaces. (Not that I advocate that that is “real” hiking or anything like that because I’d probably fall flat on my face). The hikes at Assateague were over pleasant, wooden-deck like structures. Very little chance of falling flat on my face. Which to me, makes it a great type of “hiking,” but I don’t want anyone to envision that I was trekking for miles over crazy surfaces.
Our hikes on trails were at the Assateague National Park. (Our campsite was at the Assateague State Park. I talk more about the difference in the campsite review. But, long story short, the parks are right next to each other!)
Life of the Forest Trail at Assateague
Our first trail was the “Life of the Forest” trail.
The trail, dirt in some places but wooden planks in (most) others, led you to a spectacular overlook to some of marshland of the Assateague barrier islands.
It was so crazy windy during our time at Assateague, and the open area above the marsh just made it seem like the wind was whipping our faces even harder.
Ferry Landing Trail at Assateague
After the Life of the Forest Trail, we drove to the trailhead for the Ferry Landing trail (to be honest, I’m not sure if this was considered a trail or just a road). It was on this trail that we finally saw some of Assateague’s famous horses!
Along the Life of the Marsh trail, there were various signs to measure crabs. If I recall correctly, people can go “crabbing” in this area, but they are restricted to the sizes of crabs they can take.
We spotted some horses, which were attracting the attention of other hikers as well!
I was pretty scared to get close to them. The “horses bite” and “horses kick” signs all around Assateague worked well to scare me from getting near them! But, a zoom lens came in handy!
We actually spent a lot of time on this trail, enjoying the beautiful (but windy) weather, and just taking in the breathtaking sites. And, of course, trying to avoid stepping in the massive piles of horse manure.
Life of the Marsh Trail
Our final stop was the “Life of the Marsh Trail,” which also had stunning overlooks.
As you can tell, it’s almost like we had the entire park to ourselves. The last weekend in April was apparently a great weekend to go and avoid the crowds!
There was one additional trail at Assateague, called Life of the Dunes, but it is mostly for offroading vehicles, so we didn’t hit that trail.
We finished up our hikes (according to the Fitbit, more than 17,000 steps that day!), and went back to our campsite and started an early campfire. The previous night we waited till a bit too late to start the fire and we were pretty chilly by the time the sunset. This time we wanted a gorgeous, roaring fire with lots of hot burning coals to keep us warm through the evening.
Our trip to Assateague also consisted of a stop at (very) nearby Ocean City, which I’ll cover in a future post!